


You'd Be Surprised What Coffee Can Do

by sscribbless



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Very Bad Language, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 21:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sscribbless/pseuds/sscribbless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think I’ll just point out now that, if the way you’ve been ogling him since he took your order is anything to go by, you want to be all over that barista’s ass in about a dozen different ways and are probably already making plans to Captor said ass by the end of the week.”</p><p>“Both thtatementth are undeniably true. And I appreciate the pun."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You spend the first few moments after opening your eyes wondering why the hell your neck hurts so much. You blink and lift your head, your neck cracking audibly and your cheek slowly unsticking from your keyboard. It isn’t very hard to figure out that you fell asleep at your desk last night.

Your name is Sollux Captor and it's nearing the end of May. Your birthday draws ever closer. Until last night you had a hugely important project to finish. You were cutting back on unnecessary things like sleep and food to make sure you completed it and you guess that your neglect caught up with you once you were done with the last line of code.

You hit the space bar to take your computer out of standby and open pesterchum to take your status off of "Away." Once the program has caught up with your action, you watch as a window pops up and presents you with a barrage of, until now, unseen messages. Your horror grows as you scroll through them. Every single one of them is from Aradia, shit. You skim the last couple lines of red text with a growing sense of dread.

\--12:34pm Wednesday, May 30th--

AA: ok ill just totally ignore the fact that we made plans for today that you totally forgot about because  
AA: hey its your birthday you can spend it however you want  
AA: but you havent been online in more than a week so tomorrow i am coming to your house and dragging your ass out to buy me coffee

\--9:58am Thursday, May 31st--

AA: sollux it is currently two minutes until ten and i am leaving my house right now  
AA: see you in half an hour

Apparently you've actually reached the last day of May and have also missed your own birthday. Your eyes dart to the clock in the lower corner of your screen. It's 10:21 am and, shitshitshit, you have less than ten minutes to get ready for a belated birthday date.

You stand up, nearly knocking over your desk chair as you run into the bathroom. You wrench the hot water on, tear your clothes off, and jump in, scrubbing your head with shampoo and not caring that the water isn't hot yet. Once your hair is clean, you turn the water off and stumble into your bedroom, picking up random articles of clothes and giving them the sniff-test. Once you're in some relatively clean-smelling (if a bit rumpled) clothes, you skid into the kitchen and grab an apple off of the table. You hear someone unlocking the door just as you take your first bite and you go to meet her in the hallway, leaning against the wall and taking another bite as casually as you can.

"Hey," you say, hastily combing your hair back with a hand when she opens the door.

Aradia blinks at you. Her eyes flick down to your chest. ”Sollux.”

"Uh, what?" you ask, taking another hopefully-nonchalant bite of your apple.

"Your shirt is on backwards," she informs you.

“Oh. Oopth.”

She shakes her head. "Okay, I can literally see the imprint of your keyboard on your face and I just stood outside for ten minutes listening to your skinny butt sprinting around your apartment. Go get your ass ready for real, it is so obvious that you just woke up." She takes you by the shoulders and turns you around before shoving you down the hall. You are more than happy to hide behind the door to your bedroom a bit longer, leaving Aradia to entertain herself for a few minutes.

Once you are actually ready to go, hair somewhat neater than it was and clothes correctly arranged, you leave your apartment with your phone and wallet in the pockets of a spring-friendly sweater and your best friend's arm linked with yours. Aradia locks up behind you with the set of keys you keep telling yourself you're going to remove from her possession.

"I don't really want to know how long it's been since the last time you ate something legitimate, but I'm just going to guess that you'd like breakfast with your coffee?"

"I'll be fine, I had an apple,” you ignore the look she gives you, “Am I thtill buying?"

"You most definitely are." You shrug and change the subject to Aradia's classes. Only a moment passes before she begins gushing about how great her ancient architecture teacher is and how excited she is for the end of term project.

"It’s such a gorgeous building, I’d love to go there someday. I mean I’ve always wanted to visit Japan anyways. I think it holds the world’s largest bronze statue of Buddha, isn’t that cool? This is the Starbucks, let's go in. It’s incredible because the temple is only a fraction of the size it used to be, but it’s still one of the biggest wooden buildings in the world. What do you want to get?"

You gaze at the list of hot beverages on the board behind the counter, ignoring all of the unrecognizable words that don’t appear to have anything to do with coffee, which narrows your choices down to maybe four things. You glance at the employee at the cash register. He’s not paying the slightest bit of attention to you, instead looking down and scribbling furiously on a sheet of paper that you’re sure must have done something horrible to him if the force he’s writing on it with is anything to go by.

He notices your gaze and looks up at you. Wow, you were not expecting him to be attractive under all that wild hair. His skin is the color of coffee with milk and his eyes are a dark brown to match. He scowls at you, folding up his paper and stuffing it into his back pocket. “Can I help you?”

You start. “Oh, I’d like a...” you look at the menu again. Nothing resembles a plain coffee. You order anyways, hoping he has it, “a large coffee?”

“A venti coffee?” he asks, looking unimpressed.

“Yeth. That.” you say, noticing the sizes listed and wondering why the fuck they’re all just different words for big.

”Great." He rolls his eyes at you and turns around to make your coffee. You stare. First of all, wow you thought he just looked short because he was leaning on the counter, but no. There is no way he’s taller than 5'4". Second of all, holy shit, his hips and, sweet shitting christ, his ass. He returns to the counter after a minute while a machine drips coffee into a tin. "That it?"

When you gesture for Aradia to order and she steps forward, his expression changes almost instantly from mild annoyance to recognition. "Hey, you're in my psychology class aren't you?"

"Actually, I think I am," her brow furrows as she looks at him, "your name is... Vantas?"

"Yeah, my first name's Karkat,” you file his name away in your brain for later use, “Uh, sorry I don't remember your name, but do you know what the latest assignment was? I spaced and neglected to write it down like a total brain dead idiot and you know how Scratch is, technophobic as a tool-deprived Neanderthal, so it's not like he's going to put it on his site."

"I do know what it was. We're supposed to read chapter eleven of the textbook."

He scowls. "Damn, I still haven't read chapter ten."

"You might want to do that. He hinted that he plans to assign a big paper soon."

"Ugh. Alright, well thanks for the heads up. What do you want?"

"I'd like a grande caramel frappuccino with whole milk,” she pauses, “and don't skimp on the whipped cream, please,” she adds with a wink.

Aradia’s new friend just nods like he understands whatever the fuck just came out of her mouth and rings it up.

As you pay you lean towards Aradia, "What the fuck did you jutht order?"

"You obviously don't come to Starbucks often."

"Why would I come here at all? I have a coffee maker."

"Yeah, a broken coffee maker."

"She'th not broken; she jutht liketh to take her time."

"She?"

Before you can put into words just how wonderful your loyal coffeemaker is (her name is Lady and she has supported you through many a sleepless night with her magical waking brew), you are cut off by a horrible searing pain on your stomach. You will deny the feminine shriek you emit when Small-Brown-and-Attractive upends your coffee all over your front until the day you die.

“Ah, shitfuckdamnit. One second,” Karkat reaches under the table and tosses a wad of napkins in your general direction. He talks as he hastily wipes the counter with his own fistful of napkins, “I’ll make you another one, shit.” He turns around to start your next coffee while Aradia tries to pull your sweater off so the coffee doesn’t soak through to the t-shirt underneath. You are suddenly grateful that the café seems to be patron-free, with the exception of Aradia and yourself.

By the time your replacement drink is ready, your sweater is in Aradia’s possession and your hair is a mess. You try to be snippy with the hot beverage-wielding employee as he places a to-go cup in front of you, but he’s acting genuinely apologetic and he doesn’t seem to be as much of an asshole as you initially thought he was. You decide to let his slip-up pass without acting like a huge douche.

“Uh, thankth.”

“Here, let me give you a gift card or something,” he types something on the register and hands you a little card with a mug and a large 10 printed on it. You take it and slip it into your pocket, nodding in thanks as you pick up your new, more carefully-handled coffee in one hand and Aradia’s frappa-thing in the other. Once you’re away from the counter, you put a heinously large amount of honey in your beverage, as per usual, take a sip, and declare that it was far too sweet.

“That’s because it’s probably drowning in honey at this point.”

“I don’t think you can drown liquidth, AA. Anywayth, I doubt that’th it. I alwayth put thith much honey in.”

“Which you only have to do because your broken coffee machine makes your coffee ridiculously bitter and the honey balances it out. I repeat something that I’ve said many times before: Your coffee maker sucks.”

“Don’t dithh Lady, she’th done a lot for me.”

“I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just tell me that you named your ghetto coffee-maker Lady, of all things, and move on before this conversation gets even weirder," she grins at you, "I think I’ll just point out now that, if the way you’ve been ogling him since he took your order is anything to go by, you want to be all over that barista’s ass in about a dozen different ways and are probably already making plans to Captor said ass by the end of the week.”

“Both thtatementth are undeniably true. And I appreciate the pun,” you say, snickering before you take another sip of coffee and grimace at the overpowering sweetness. You lead Aradia out of the Starbucks, feeling your excuse to return in your back pocket along with your debit card and a wad of twenties. You glance over your shoulder and watch Karkat continue to write furiously before the glass door swings closed and your companion commands your attention to redirect itself to her once more.

***

Your plan to visit the Starbucks around the block and sweep Aradia’s classmate off of his feet and into your bed is tragically postponed due to another large project. You meant to return by the end of the week, just as Aradia had predicted, but with a new program to design and bills to pay, you’re forced to wait almost two weeks before you have an opportunity to buy yourself another overly-expensive coffee that is not even close to the quality brew you can get at home for free.

It’s a Tuesday when you return and you make an effort to show up around the same time as your last visit, hoping to catch your favorite employee’s shift again. Luckily for you, you do. When you open the glass doors, you grin, catching sight of him, hunched over the counter, attacking a sheet of paper with a pen just as he was the last time you saw him. You walk to the counter, waiting for him to notice the customer standing before him. When he doesn’t, you clear your throat. Nothing. You decide to be a nosy prick and find out just what he is so absorbed in. You deftly slide his page out from under his pen and flip it so you can actually see it.

Before you can decipher anything, however (wow, and you thought your handwriting was bad), the paper is snatched back from you and you are left facing a very irritated barista in its stead. “That would be mine, asshole. Can I help you?”

“Actually, you can, theeing ath I am a cuthtomer and you are an employee,” you point out.

“Wow, if I wasn't paid for this shit, I honestly wouldn't even bother dealing with someone that so obviously didn’t even make it through grade school. Wasn’t someone responsible for teaching you manners? Because I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but you’re not supposed to take other people’s personal things.”

“Perthonal? What the fuck wath it, a diary entry?”

He doesn’t answer. “What do you want to order?” he asks instead.

You pull your gift card out of your pocket, tossing it on the counter with little ceremony. 

“I'd like a,” you try to remember what the sizes are called, “venti coffee?”

He narrows his eyes at the card and then looks back to you. “Are you the guy I upended a coffee on a couple weeks ago?”

You grin. “I motht thertainly am. You remember me?”

“Of course I remember. I had to dock that card from my own fucking pay and contrary to common belief, the commoner in this case being you, I'm usually capable of doing a simple job such as giving caffeine to cranky assholes like you without fucking up. And now I'm suddenly really regretting my apology. You fucking deserved that coffee assault, because you're a rude fuckwad that never learned to use your manners like the civilized person most people spend their lives pretending to be.” He turns around to fix your drink, ending the conversation before you can respond. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the back of his shirt.

“Hey,” you say, staring at the logo, “you play Sgrub?"

He looks over his shoulder, eying you suspiciously. "Yeah, asshole, that's why I'm wearing this shirt. Why?"

"I do too," you say, fishing around in your pockets for some sort of paper. You pull out a receipt from a few days ago and snatch a pen from the counter, scrawling your name and server on the back. After a moment of thought, you add your pesterchum handle underneath it and slide it over to the other side of the counter. The barista stares for a moment.

"What the fuck kind of name is Sollux?" he asks as he turns around to get your coffee.

"I don't know, what the fuck kind of name ith Karkat?" you retort. He tenses when you say his name.

"And how exactly do you know my name?" he asks.

You stare pointedly at his name tag. He looks down at it, too.

"Right," he sets your coffee down in front of you.

"You altho introduthed yourthelf to Aradia, the girl with me latht week. Becauthe I wath thtanding right there, and it would be pretty difficult to mithtake you for thomeone that'th thoft thpoken, I heard you."

“You play on the same server as me,” Karkat says as he takes your card and rings up your order.

"Cool," you say, hoping you don't sound as excited about that as you really are.

"There are still like seven bucks on that," he gives the gift card back to you and you slide it into your pocket. You pick up your coffee and nod your thanks to him as you leave the Starbucks. You feel pretty confident in your seduction skills as you leave Karkat with your contact information scribbled on the back of a crumpled receipt for deodorant. It only worries you a little that you haven't actually played Sgrub in about a month and a half. You kicked ass in that game and you're sure you can catch up with the new content easily.

***

By about eight o'clock that evening, you are regretting your decision to give him your information rather than writing down his with every fiber of your being. You had renewed your Sgrub account as soon as you got home and had spent your entire afternoon getting used to playing again while periodically checking pesterchum to see if you had any new messages. By periodically, you mean about every five minutes and, of course, you didn't receive a single message.

At around eleven, you decide you've played enough Sgrub for the night and you need some sleep.

***

When you wake up the next morning, the pesterchum icon on your phone is blinking at you.

\--11:56pm Tuesday, June 12nd--

CG: Hey  
CG: Is this Sollux?  
CG: Fuck you're offline.  
CG: Oh shit, it's later than I realized. Okay, just message me when you wake up then.  
CG: My character's name is Signless. He's a blood knight.  
CG: Unless you aren't Sollux, in which case  
CG: uh  
CG: sorry

You smile to yourself and respond quickly.

TA: yeah, it's me.  
TA: and fuck yes you play a knight. i play a mage named psiioniic.

You can't fucking wait until he comes back online.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, cumguzzler, quit fucking eating and try practicing some god damn courtesy. Just listening to your voice is enough of a test of my patience as it is. I certainly don't need more irritation to make it even harder."

You move the mic a little farther from your mouth, but continue eating from the bag of chips you opened.

"Better?" you ask, licking the honey barbecue flavoring from your fingertips.

"Not even a little, but whatever. It's not like I'm not used to you ignoring me," he pauses, "Are you up for another round tonight or should we call it quits?"

"Do you even need to athk?" you wipe your fingers on your jeans and cue your and Karkat's characters up for another battle.

"Oh, fuck. Make sure you silence the thief, she's got some fuck-your-shit level kickass gear," Karkat says as you're matched with an opposing team and their stats show up on the screen.

You swear. They've got a seer, too. You fucking hate fighting seers.

***

"That was way too fucking close. Where the hell was your useless carcass that whole god damned time?" Karkat sounds like he wants to reach through your headset and strangle you with your own mouse cord, but he sort of always sounds like that (it's like his default mode, pissed-at-Sollux), so you don't let it phase you.

"I wath dealing with the theer you conveniently neglected to help me with. It wath fucking impothhible, you know mind playerth have crathy thilenthing abilitieth. And we thtill won, didn't we?"

"Barely," Karkat mutters.

You sigh. There's a really long pause that has you checking to make sure Karkat hasn't disconnected, because he never stays quiet for this long, especially if he has an opportunity to reprimand you.

"Hey, Sollux?"

"What?"

"Did you tell me that you have a PS3 a few days ago or am I just delusional?"

That is a really random question and you have no idea where he's going with this. "You’re definitely delusional, yeah, but I do have one. Why do you care?"

"I care because Skaia Games has been flipping its shit over its a new console game."

"I know. I probably follow Skaia'th activity even more religiouthly than your thorry athh."

"Well they revealed the day they’re releasing it a while ago,” you know that, too, but you don’t say anything, “and I preordered a copy."

That’s something you didn’t know. "Wow, thomebody mutht have been thaving their pennieth."

"Oh shut the fuck up, not all of us are unsuccessful morons like you that dropped out of college just so they could start the process of slowly becoming one with their keyboards without pointless interruptions such as classes and anything that can be called legitimate social interaction. Some of us actually spend money on school and make attempts to educate ourselves so that we can spend our lives doing something more useful than consuming energy drinks and ramen and making rich companies even richer."

"Calm your shit, KK. I didn't mean to get your pantieth in a twitht."

"My name is Karkat, cuntbreath. That is the name I was given when I left the womb, and that is the name I have had ever since. Say it right or your name is Thollukth forevermore," he says his false lisp far worse than yours has ever been.

"Alright, fine. I don't really give a shit. What wath the point of athking me if I had a PS3?"

"Right, uh," there's another really long pause, "would it be a presumptuous, shit-brained move if I asked to come over to play when the game comes out?"

"Oh." That was the last thing you expected him to ask.

"Yeah, okay. You don't want some dickhead that poured coffee on you the last time you saw him in person at your house, that's understandable. How about we pretend I never said that," Karkat says quickly.

"No, it'th cool."

"What?"

"You can come over to my plathe. I don't mind," you say, hoping against hope that he doesn't back out.

He doesn't. In fact, when you suggest that he stay over so you can make more progress in the game, he accepts the invitation. He expects to get his copy of AlterniaBound during this week, so you plan to have him over next Saturday. Once everything is settled, you spend some time ranting about how fucking overpowered light players are and how Skaia Games needs to fucking get on that.

\-- 10:12pm Sunday, July 22nd --

CG: Are you going to be online tomorrow?  
TA: what the fuck do you think?  
CG: Right. Forgive me, I briefly forgot that you’re an unusual subspecies of human that only leaves the sweet embrace of your computer to microwave “food” to shove down your malnourished throat tube and then later to release it from your system, containing even less nutrients than it already had.  
TA: fuck why do i even talk to you?  
CG: Because I’m a fucking stellar tank and you really need someone with some actual defense to cover your ass.  
TA: alright, yeah. that’s pretty much true  
TA: night, asshole.  
CG: Same, shitsponge.

***

You spend several hours on Friday cleaning up your dumb little apartment (you’ve never noticed how stupidly small it was before). You don’t go to crazy, but you do clean up the occasional collections of energy drink cans that you’ve left around your house , standing in rank like little empty soldiers, and you get most of the clothes off of the floor in your room. Not that you expect Karkat to have any reason to go into your room, you just think it might be a good idea to pick it up a bit, you know, since you’re cleaning up anyways.

You also make sure you have popcorn and plenty of other snacks in stock, because that’s a thing you need when people come over. You will be the best host ever. Except no you won’t, because you’re a horrible host. You send Aradia about two-hundred text messages telling her just this, but she assures you that you shouldn’t worry.

You are a lot more nervous than you care to admit when you hear three sharp knocks on your door the next day. You send Aradia a last “oh fuck he’s here” text and go to answer the door.

Holy shit, you kind of forgot how short Karkat is. You haven’t technically seen him since your second visit to the Starbucks he works at and you guess he’s such a loud mouth you’d sort of forgotten he was overcompensating for his size. You'd also definitely forgotten just how well he wears that weird, rough, but not unpleasant brand of attractive. Now he’s standing in front of you wearing a large hoodie, which makes absolutely no sense at all because it’s the middle of sweat-your-tits-off July, with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He’s looking up at you like you're not the only one that had forgotten how short he was and now he’s starting to regret every single one of his life choices.

He quickly recovers from this and steps into your apartment, literally shoving you aside to clear his path. You guess he's probably used to people being taller than him.

“Alright, Sir Tall and Brainless, where shall I drop my royal shit?” he asks, pulling at the strap of his bag to emphasize his words.

You can’t help but grin. “The living room’th right in front of you, King Thtubby and Blind. You're thleeping on the couch tonight.”

“Got it and got it,” he trudges forward into your living room and you follow, grinning a little wider when you see the way Karkat is staring at your TV. “Holy beautifully high-res flat screen, how fucking big is that thing?”

“It’th twenty-eight incheth.”

He whistles through his teeth in awe. “How is it that someone as dysfunctional as you even managed to scrape together enough change to afford that?”

“If there’th one thing I’m willing to thpend far more money on than I probably should, it’th my electronicth,” you say, "Did you bring AlterniaBound?”

Karkat makes a face that both answers your question and also manages to communicate exactly how stupid he thinks you are for even asking in the first place. He fishes a game case out of his bag and places it carefully on your coffee table.

You pick it up and direct Karkat to the kitchen to grab whatever snacks he wants from the stash you bought for the occasion while you set up your PS3. When he comes back, you’ve set up the game and placed your best controllers on either end of your couch. You’re sitting expectantly with your blue controller in hand as the starting screen loops on your tv.

Karkat sits next to you, placing a bowl of chips between you and taking the red controller.

“You’re player one, tho whenever you’re ready.”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course I'm player one. And to think I’d almost forgotten about your lame duality fetish.” He presses start, selects the game’s two-player mode, and you watch the introductory cut scene.

It doesn't take very long for you fall into the usual patterns. Karkat tries very hard to strategize and give you orders and you do everything you can to /not/ follow his plans. Despite your disobedience, you still win most of the campaigns on your first attempts. Before long, he's on his feet, swearing profusely and mashing buttons with the same measured fury he attacks everything with.

When Karkat first arrived at your apartment, it was late afternoon. By the time you remember that your body is going to need some food if you continue gaming, it's dark outside and has been for quite a while. You pause the game after the next cut scene before Karkat can rush into the next campaign. You ask him the time-old question, “Chinethe or pizza?”

“I am sick to fucking death-by-sugarcoated-meat of Chinese. Buy me pizza.”

“Uh, no. Thorry to dithappoint you, but I'm not buying you shit,” you say, standing up to get the menu of the nearest Italian place.

“It's my game,” he says, crossing his arms like he's five and hasn't learned that that isn't cute yet.

“It'th my playthtation,” you pick up your phone and start dialing.

“Fine. We'll split it,” he says and you're pretty sure he was just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative.

“Eheheh, awethome. Pepperoni good?”

Karkat groans, “Get whatever the hell you want, just promise you won't be getting off to the fact that you're paying for half.”

You leave the room to order because Karkat is a distracting asshole and you don't want to accidentally order anchovies, which is a thing you've done before and anchovy pizza is weird. As you hang up, you notice that it's actually getting late. When you return to your livingroom, Karkat's pulled off his sweater and is scrutinizing your dvd collection, his expression a combination of criticism and outright disgust.

“Your taste in movies is literally so bad that it is equivalent to nothing more than a pile of rhinoceros shit. It's really tragic that your TV has to put up with this bullshit,” he turns around, holding a movie, “I guess Zombieland is at least a little bit decent. It'll have to do.”

Back to Karkat being sweaterless. You have never seen him in a t-shirt, seeing as this is only the second time you've met him in person and long sleeves seem to be his thing. Karkat is a lot more built than you had expected. This is bad, because you honestly did not hear a word he just said. You were far too busy openly staring at this new development on the oh-no-Karkat's-hot Show.

You guess your panic is plain to see, because he notices your gaze and flashes a grin, lopsided and full of teeth, and fuck why is it suddenly a lot harder to keep it in your pants, this wasn't a problem until now.

“Alright, Sollux. Set up your dvd player because it's stupid and doesn't make sense and don't look so surprised that I actually have some meat on my bones. I don't spend literally every waking moment of my life in front of my computer, unlike your anorexic husk.”

You look away from him to your dvd player, then back to him, composing yourself and giving him your best unimpressed look over the rim of your glasses. “Did you know that a playthtation can play dvdth? Becauthe it can and that maketh you an idiot.”

“Oh right. Well forgive me for the momentary lapse of memory, but I don't actually have one of these to call my own, asshat,” he says, tossing Zombieland to you.

It only takes a minute for you to set it up and then you settle on the couch next to Karkat again to watch the movie. You agree with Karkat that this definitely classifies as a romcom, because that genre is a lot more accurate than zombie movie. You have to pause for a minute when the pizza is delivered, but after you pay and sit down again you and Karkat quickly return to your commentary of the movie, now through mouthfuls of pizza.

You get a little bit uncomfortable during a kissing scene, but you just avert your eyes and wait for it to pass, trying really hard not to look at Karkat or think about Karkat or do anything else involving Karkat that you might regret.

By the time the movie is over, the pizza is long gone and you're both full and happy and what the fuck, when did it become midnight?

You put the first Matrix movie in next, because Karkat doesn't look utterly horrified when you suggest it. 

You wake a few hours later, Karkat lying on your chest and the Matrix title screen looping on your TV. You extract yourself from under Karkat as carefully as you can, which isn't very careful at all, but he sleeps right through you sort of dropping his head on a pillow. You turn off the television and your playstation and go down the hall to retrieve a blanket from your room.

You return and put it by Karkat's feet because it's too hot to need it, but who knows, maybe he'll get cold and you don't want to be the asshole that neglected to supply him with a blanket. You end up standing there for more timer than you'd meant to. Karkat looks a lot younger when he's sleeping. Not in a suddenly-he's-twelve creepy way, but in a not-a-cynical-angry-asshole sort of nice way.

After lingering for just a bit longer, you trudge back to your room and pull your jeans off, trading them for pajama bottoms. You fish your phone out of the pocket of your discarded pants and send Aradia a simple “so that wasnt two bad.” You're too tired to fix your typo, so you settle for dropping your phone and flopping face-first onto your bed.

***

“How many centuries ago did you buy these eggs?” You are staring at Karkat, squinting just a little because you're not wearing your glasses yet and he's standing in front of your open fridge, holding a half-dozen eggs and you had sort of forgotten he was here, but you're not unhappy to see him.

“I jutht bought thothe latht week,” you say, scowling.

Karkat gives you a look that plainly says he doesn't believe you and he puts the carton down, starting to go through your cupboards. “Where do you keep your pots and shit?”

“To the left of the thtove. What are you doing?”

“I'm pretending that I've suddenly become victim to short-term memory loss and that I'm not aware that you're the host or that this is your job and I'm making us breakfast. How do you like your eggs?”

“Over eathy.”

Karkat turns so you can properly see the look of disgust on his face. “You can actually eat that runny half-cooked bullshit?”

You shrug. It is too early and you don't have enough caffeine in your system to put up much of a fight. You shuffle over to Lady and start making a pot of coffee.

Not much later, Karkat sets a plate of eggs in front of you. He didn't even ask, he just made you two. You move your mug aside and pull your plate forward.

“Holy bitter, Sollux. This coffee is awful.”

You proceed to have a very heated debate over what makes good coffee that neither of you win.

When Karkat leaves a couple hours later, you make plans you do this again. After all, you hadn't finished AlterniaBound yet.

You sigh after locking the door behind him. You can hear his footsteps, short and angry as the rest of him, as he walks down the hallway. You are so head over heals it's fucking embarrassing.


End file.
